DakotaCounty/Software Setup

Most of the content on this page is copied from the very excellent Louisville,_Kentucky/Building_Outlines_Import/Software_Setup - we are adopting the basic outline of their import process, but there are a few minor differences. If you notice any errors, please report them or even better, just to jump in and fix them.

This is a guide that walks you through all the free software you need to install to prep for importing data into OSM.

1) Create Special OSM Import Username

According to OSM's Import guidelines, bulk data imports like this should be done from special usernames. This is important so that the OSM community can easily identify what data is coming from imports and what is created by normal users.

Please create a new username for the data import, not your normal account. We're using the format <username>_dcmnbuildings where username is your normal OSM username.

The password does not need to be super secure. You probably should not use one that you also use for important things.

A confirmation email will be sent, and you'll need to click on the link it sends to confirm the new account.

(If you don't have a normal OSM username, that's fine, but go ahead and create a user that ends in <username>_dcmnbuildings for the building import)

Note: if you already have an OSM account registered with one email address, it will not allow you to register a second account on the same email address. If you have another email account, you could use that. Or, many email services (including gmail) allow you to append any text to your username after a plus sign (+) and it will still go to your account. For example, you could use myname+osm@gmail.com for a second account.

You may be able to install the josm package from the Debian or Ubuntu package manager, but it will likely be an out of date version. JOSM maintains an up-to-date repository though, see notes on the download page.

Java dependency

Java runtime version 7 is required to run JOSM. If you are able to run JOSM after downloading, then you're fine and can ignore this section. If not, see notes below.

Mac OS shipped with Java 6 through version 10.6 (Snow Leopard). That will not work for JOSM unfortunately. You will need to download Java 7 manually.